This invention relates to improved apparatus for collecting and disposing of gasoline vapors or other flammable vapors which might otherwise escape into and pollute the atmosphere, as for instance during the filling of fuel into an automobile tank at a service station.
With the greatly increased emphasis in recent years on attaining improvement of environmental conditions, considerable effort has been expended, among other things, in attempting to prevent escape of gasoline vapors into the atmosphere at service stations, and particularly during the filling of gasoline into an automobile tank, as well as during the filling of the service station tanks themselves from a fuel delivery truck. One type of proposed prior art arrangement for the purpose is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,581,782 issued June 1, 1971, in which vapors withdrawn from the vicininty of a service station dispensing nozzle are absorbed onto a mass of activated charcoal or other adsorbent material, and are ultimately desorbed from that material for disposal. Various forms of the invention shown in that patent dispose of the vapors by injection into the carburetor of the engine of a fuel delivery truck, or refrigeration to liquify the vapors and return them to a main storage tank, or oxidation in a catalytic converter. At one point, the patent mentions that the vapors may be "burned in a controlled system", but gives no details of the type of system contemplated.